Tourney Hosting my first tournament -- will this chip breakdown work? (1 Viewer)

[QuietMaple]

Hey there,

I've been hosting cash games for a while and now interested in trying to host my first tournament. I haven't bought a dedicated tournament chip set yet, so I would love someone to double check my chip breakdown to see if this will work. I'm hoping to get two tables running for this tourney, but could have anywhere from 8 to 16 players. Buy-in will be $20 and I will allow up to 1 re-buy per participant. Hoping for it to run for 3-4 hours.

My idea is to use my micro-stakes cash set for an at-value tournament, so I guess you would call this a T0.05 tournament. All the chips are denominated, except for the ones I'm planning on using as the $25 chips, which just have an "X" (so I can assign them any value if needed). The breakdown is:

My main concerns:
- I'm a little tight on the 5¢ chips if I get a full 16 players. I'm thinking I can sub in white dice chips in a pinch.
- Does it work to have players re-buy with four $5 chips? They can just get change from other players at the table, right?

I haven't figured out the blind progression yet, but planning on starting with 0.05/0.10.

Any other advice greatly appreciated!

 

[LotsOfChips]

I'm a little tight on the 5¢ chips if I get a full 16 players. I'm thinking I can sub in white dice chips in a pinch.

Dice chips? WTF! Just give one player 5 x 0.05 and 11 x 0.025 instead of 10 and 10. After the first few pots, one player is bound to collect a pile of nickels, so everyone will be making change anyway.

Does it work to have players re-buy with four $5 chips? They can just get change from other players at the table, right?

Not ideal, but workable. I would make it clear to the players that the big stack at the table must change out one or two 5's before the action restarts.

 

[GamingWithChips]

As someone who has run a STT for a few years and we also used "cash" value chips and starting stacks (ie $20 buy in gets you $20 in chips, with $0.05-$5 chips used) as we thought it would be cool and make sense "We know the exact value of each bet in real life dollars!!"

I found it actually alters the game in a negative way. At the first few levels the blinds are literally pennies and people don't value that and bet anything (typically way above the blinds) but then in later rounds when they realize that a $5 bet is "big" considering they started with $20, they are very hesitant to bet or call. It often also turns the early rounds into constant family pots and the later rounds into 1 person buying just the blinds because all the others are afraid to call their 2.5x BB bet. On the early levels it takes away skill and on the later levels it means more shuffling and wasted turns because of the perceived value of chips.

This is why in my next tourney set I actually want to "mask" the value of each chip with the intention of having players bet more in line with the blinds and have a more "consistent" game through the levels. This would look something like $20 buy in gets you 100K in chips.

I'm also aware this behavior depends on the experience levels of the players, but while our core is more experienced, we often have 30-50% of players as beginners. Just my experience in doing that and now looking to get away from it.

 

[Beakertwang]

if you’re short on nickels for a couple players, just add a couple quarters to their stack instead. It will work fine.

 

[Sap]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H9AHAAuL0KubIJNwawmRAskIK4fosSef5xsBoheYI3w/edit?usp=sharing

I just scaled down my T5 $2000 starting tourney.

This accounts for 16 Players with 50% rebuy (8 rebuys).

It also accounts for each player who doesn't use their rebuy will get a free add-on of 20% ($5).

 

[QuietMaple]

I found I actually alters the game in a negative way. At the first few levels the blinds are literally pennies and people don't value that and bet anything (typically way above the blinds) but then in later round when they realize that a $5 bet is "big" considering they started with $20, they are very hesitant to bet and especially bet big. It often also turns the early rounds into constant family pots and the later rounds into 1 person buying just the blinds. On the early levels it takes away skill and on the later levels it means more shuffling and wasted turns because of the perceived value of chips.

That is a great point, and I think it would affect my players in the same way (most are newbies). The problem is that I want to host this game in a few weeks and I won't have time for Tina to churn out a tournament set for me in that time

I guess my other options are:
1. Buy some additional dice chips to build out the original 500 dice chip set I bought when I first started playing poker (gross, I know)
2. Buy some other cheap denominated slugged chips to hold me over
3. Hold off on hosting until I can get a proper tournament set.

No great options here...

 

[QuietMaple]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H9AHAAuL0KubIJNwawmRAskIK4fosSef5xsBoheYI3w/edit?usp=sharing

I just scaled down my T5 $2000 starting tourney.

This accounts for 16 Players with 50% rebuy (8 rebuys).

It also accounts for each player who doesn't use their rebuy will get a free add-on of 20% ($5).

This is really excellent, thanks!

 

[Beakertwang]

I also agree that using cash value chips for tournaments isn’t ideal.

You can get 600 of these for about $100 in a great breakdown for two tables.

https://www.discountcasinogear.com/2-Stripe-Twist-Poker-Chips-p/bb1535.htm?1=1&CartID=0

Decent colors, easy to read denominations, and they stack and feel just fine. @Dugthefish uses these, and they are perfectly suitable, especially at the price point.

 

[GamingWithChips]

The problem is that I want to host this game in a few weeks and I won't have time for Tina to churn out a tournament set for me in that time

Well, it has worked for us for years lol, and it's probably mostly me in our group who has even thought of this aspect. Guarantee a newbie won't know OR care, they are too worried about if they actually have a straight or not!

So short term definitely go with what you have, it will work great. I just meant more long term when designing your chips and creating your tournament structure

 

[QuietMaple]

Ok, so given the psychological downsides of using actual-value chips, I'm considering this alternative: purchase ~100 more dice chips to add on to my existing set to make it workable (until I have time to acquire a real tournament set).

Given my existing color breakdown (200 white, 200 red, 100 green, 50 black), I think running it as a T1 makes the most sense. Since we normally play micro stakes, the numbers in play will still feel large to folks.

This is what I got:

Better than the T0.05 plan? Worse?
I can even use 25 of my non-denom chips from my cash set as T500 if needed.

 

[GamingWithChips]

Should use the 25's and 100's for rebuys if you can manage it. Or maybe a few with 25/100 and the rest with just 100's, mostly if people are out quickly and blinds are still low.

 

[Preditor]

As someone who has run a STT for a few years and we also used "cash" value chips and starting stacks (ie $20 buy in gets you $20 in chips, with $0.05-$5 chips used) as we thought it would be cool and make sense "We know the exact value of each bet in real life dollars!!"

I found it actually alters the game in a negative way.

Yes it does. And moreso, one of fun things about tournaments is being able to bet 5K or 20K or 100K!

 

[JustinInMN]

- I'm a little tight on the 5¢ chips if I get a full 16 players. I'm thinking I can sub in white dice chips in a pinch.

First I love how you organized this into a spreadsheet. This really shows what you can do.

I would agree, with this plan do your 15 identical stacks of 10/10/12/1 of 5¢/25¢/1/5, if you need a 16th stack you have enough to do a 0/12/12/1 stack. (But then you basically exhaust your singles at that point, so anything further will just have to be 4*T5

- Does it work to have players re-buy with four $5 chips? They can just get change from other players at the table, right?

Yes, given you assume every player started with a sufficient number of small chips, they exist on the table, duing 4*T5 for rebuys would work fine in this case.

I also agree that using cash value chips for tournaments isn’t ideal.

For the sake of a one-time experiment it's probably okay. But I personally prefer tournaments be denominated in whole numbers when possible and it appears the OP came up with an option for doing that.

Given my existing color breakdown (200 white, 200 red, 100 green, 50 black), I think running it as a T1 makes the most sense. Since we normally play micro stakes, the numbers in play will still feel large to folks.

Yes I do like this plan a lot and you can support 20 identical stacks easily. I think this option is quite good with what you have if that's where you are heading.

Looking like you are figuring a start on 1-2 blinds for a 200BB start, so I will suggest these levels.

1-2
1-3
2-4

3-6
4-8
6-12 (Remove T1)

10-20
15-30
20-40
30-60 (Remove T5)

50-100
75-150
100-200
150-300 (remove T25)

200-400 (likely end with up to 20 entries)
300-600 (likely end with up to 30 entries)

If this looks long, perhaps you consider a 150BB start instead of 200BB? For 8 handed tournaments I would set levels at least 16 minutes, but 18-20 would be better.

Glad you are giving this a try with what you have, but along with the others, I would suggest a dedicated and denominated tournament set if this is something you plan to do frequently.

 

[QuietMaple]

Thanks so much for the feedback and the blind structure. I think I'll definitely go with the T1 approach.